Tax Resistance in “The Mennonite”, 1976

This is the twenty-third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
brings us up to 1976.

The question of whether the Mennonite General Conference should stop
withholding taxes from the paychecks of conscientiously objecting employees
continued to bedevil the Conference and its various committees and commissions
in 1976. After the American Friends Service
Committee won a District Court ruling about withholding from its objecting
employees, the General Conference was pressed to adopt such a policy. But that
ruling was swiftly overturned by the Supreme Court, and so the Conference
seemed to lose its nerve.

In late 1975 the executive committee of
the General Conference’s Commission
on Home Ministries decided to put on its agenda for their full-commission
meeting in February a “recommendation
that the General Conference not withhold the military portion of income taxes
from the paychecks of those employees who do not wish to pay war taxes
voluntarily. This would mean that such employees, rather than the conference,
could be responsible for the decision of whether to pay war taxes to the
government.”

That proposed recommendation
was
approved at the meeting, “but referred for further study by the Division of
Administration and the General Board.”

A 2 March 1976 article covered the slow
progress of the proposal through the Conference bureaucracy:

Should General Conference employees have the right not to have war taxes
withheld by the conference from their paychecks?

For the time being, the answer is still no, pending further study and the
securing of more legal counsel.

The peace and social concerns reference council of the Commission on Home
Ministries raised the issue of war-tax withholding by the conference. The
reference council recommended that the General Conference central offices
allow persons the right not to have taxes withheld (in line with research done
last summer by a law student), that other Mennonite institutions be invited to
participate in similar action, and that congregations and individuals be
invited to consider war tax resistance.

“Freedom of religion includes freedom from the church forced by the state to
act as a tax collection agent, particularly when taxes are used for purposes
which are in conflict with the kingdom,” said the reference council statement.
“The Anabaptist concept of separation of church and state would also suggest
that the church not perform this kind of state function.”

The Commission on Home Ministries, in its annual session in
February, approved the recommendation
with some reservations. The Division of Administration had even more
reservations about the recommendation.

DA
members questioned the legal findings of last summer and asked for further
consultation with a tax attorney with more experience in this area.
Specifically they wanted to know the cost of possible litigation, whether a
revenue ruling should be requested from the Internal Revenue Service, possible
civil and criminal sanctions against the General Conference, the effect on the
conference’s tax-exempt status, and the chances of success in the event of
litigation.

“Conscience is a personal thing, and we’re not together on what we want to do
with this,” said
DA
chairman Howard Baumgartner of Berne, Indiana. “CHM
is asking that the business manager be put on the spot. What if his conscience
doesn’t permit him to break this law? My conscience tells me to pay my tax.”

In the closing minutes of its sessions, the General Board, acting on the
recommendation of the
DA,
asked the
DA to
do further study on the legal aspects of failure to withhold taxes and to
bring back some information at the General Board’s
August meeting.

“I’m not willing to face the legal consequences until we’re fairly united on
this,” said conference president Elmer Neufeld of Bluffton, Ohio.

At present, the General Conference central offices withhold all state and
federal income taxes from the paychecks of nonordained employees. Such persons
cannot choose whether to pay or not to pay any war taxes they owe because the
government already has the money, or most of it.

Editor Larry Kehler, in the 2 March 1976
issue called this a “red flag”:

Although some leaders from other denominations may be beginning to notice and
listen to the Anabaptist-Mennonite point of view as an attractive option, the
Mennonites may be losing their testimony as a peace church. One committee at
the Council of Commissions stated, for example, in its opinion there was no
“corporate conscience” within the General Conference against the payment of
war taxes.

And Peter J. Ediger summed things up in his prose-poem fashion:

It came to pass that an employee of the General Conference Mennonite Church
requested that taxes for the military not be withheld from her paycheck.

And officers of the conference said, “What shall we do?”
And the Commission on Home Ministries was asked to study the matter
and make a recommendation.
And the commission hired a student of law to research the options;
and the commission joined with other Mennonite groups in calling for a study conference on war tax questions.
And from the research and the conference came a clear recommendation
that the General Conference allow persons the right
not to have war taxes withheld.

And when this recommendation was brought to the Commission on Home Ministries
there was a consensus of support and agreement to recommend its adoption to the General Board.

And the recommendation was brought to the Division of Administration.
And lo, their response was as follows:

“Motion that the request of CHM for right not to have taxes withheld
from salaries of employees who submit such request be refused…”
and listing six recommendations asking for more legal counsel.

And so the conflicting recommendations were brought to the General Board.
And the General Board was occupied with many weighty matters.
The agenda was long and the time for discernment was short
and war taxes was the last item on the agenda
and five minutes was left for this item
and no action was taken.

And the conference goes on with business as usual
continuing collection of money for making of war
seeking its guidance more from the law of the land
and less from the law of the Lord.

Do we really want the laws and lawyers of our society
to define the perimeters of our discipleship?

The
General Board executive committee met in
May and “allotted two hours at the
full board session in August… for discussion of
whether the conference should honor an employee’s request that federal income
taxes not be deducted from her paycheck. Theological input on the payment of
war taxes was also requested.”

The way this was put in
an
announcement just before the board meeting was: “The Division of
Administration… wants to continue its policy of not honoring employees’
requests that the portion of their federal taxes which goes for war not be
taking out of their paychecks.”

After almost three hours of discussion by the General Board of the General
Conference, a decision is still pending on whether the conference should honor
an employee’s request that the portion of her income taxes that goes for war
not be taken out of her pay.

The board had set aside two hours at the end of its midyear meeting
August 19–20 in Washington, Illinois, to
consider the issue of war tax withholding. Marlin Miller of Goshen Biblical
Seminary had been invited to give biblical input, and Division of
Administration members Howard Baumgartner and Elvin Souder, both attorneys, to
give legal recommendations.

The issue was whether the General Conference business office should violate
U.S. law by
refusing to take from an employee’s paycheck the portion (almost half) of her
federal income taxes which would go for military purposes. Such action would
allow the employee to refuse to pay such taxes and would make her personally
liable for nonpayment of tax.

The law at present requires employers to withhold income and Social Security
taxes from employees’ salaries — except in the case of ordained employees, who
may legally consider themselves self-employed and are thus personally
responsible for making, or not making, quarterly tax payments. A number of
ordained employees at the General Conference offices are already refusing war
taxes in this manner.

Nonordained employees have no way of refusing war taxes except by falsifying
their tax returns or the number of exemptions they claim.

The General Board did not vote on a normal motion on the war tax matter, but
straw poll showed a slight majority in favor of allowing all employees the
right to refuse war taxes, in spite of the possible consequences to the
conference or its officers for breaking the law. But the board was not willing
to act officially until it reached greater consensus.

“We are facing an issue of our own integrity as a people and as a church,”
said board member Peter Ediger of Arvada, Colorado. “It is a situation not
unlike that of our grandfathers in World War Ⅰ. Because some of them had the
courage to say no, laws were enacted to permit conscientious objection to
military service. And it is an evangelism issue. Our world desperately needs
the good news that there is an alternative to violence and war. We can do this
with the kind of integrity that perhaps no other corporate group in our world
can.”

Some like Irene Dunn of Normal, Illinois, were not ready to decide personally
about payment of war taxes, but wanted to allow General Conference employees
freedom of conscience concerning war taxes.

Others wanted to postpone the issue. “It’s my feeling we should take a
recommendation to the triennial conference,” said board president Elmer
Neufeld of Bluffton, Ohio.

In the end the decision was postponed — probably until the
February board session.

Marlin Miller, himself a tax refuser for seven years, told the board that the
legality of refusing war taxes was not the highest morality. “If we are clear
on the moral principles, we will find a way to deal with the legal matters,”
he said.

His biblical study focused on Mark 12:13–17
(in which Jesus tells those who are trying to trick him, “Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”) and
Romans 13.

There is no unambiguous word in the New Testament on whether the Christian
should pay all taxes he said. But likewise, there is no clear statement in the
New Testament on not going to military service. “Taxes are due to the
governing authorities, but there is still a need for moral discrimination,”
Mr. Miller said.

Howard Baumgartner told the board that, if it decided to allow an employee not
to pay her war taxes, it might want to test the constitutionality of the
withholding law in the
U.S. courts. An
earlier similar case from the American Friends Service Committee had been
thrown out on technical grounds without testing the tax law itself.

Elmer Neufeld, president of the General Conference, sent
a
letter to all General Conference pastors on the subject:

Should the conference withhold taxes for war?

Some time ago I reviewed a number of the court-martial records of the
Mennonite men in the United States in World War Ⅰ who were tried for refusing
to participate in military service. These were our fathers and fathers’
fathers who had committed their lives to the way of the cross and who held
with the saints of all ages that there is a law of God which stands above the
human laws of the nation.

There was no legal provision for conscientious objection to military service
and war, so they simply took their stand in humble obedience to Christ and
accepted the consequences. Gerhard M. Baergen… guilty. Abraham Goertz… guilty.
Russell A. Lantz… guilty. John T. Neufeld… guilty. Carl A. Schmidt… guilty.
Walter Sprunger… guilty. And so on.

It is through the sacrifice of these sturdy men of conscience that the United
States came to provide a legal alternative to military service and war for
those with scruples against participation. It is through their sacrifice that
many of us were able to use this legal alternative in World War Ⅱ and again in
the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Now we face a new situation. For the first time
since 1940, except for a brief lull
following World War Ⅱ, our churches in the United States no longer face the
conscription of young men for military service. For this many have worked and
for this we are grateful. However, it is clear that conscription for military
service was not terminated because the United States has come to rely less on
military power. In fact, the United States has come to be militarily the most
powerful nation in the world and is exporting more armaments than any other
nation in the world. All of this is possible with well-paid volunteer armed
forces and a heavily financed industrial military complex. The military
complex is able to get along without our young men as draftees, but it insists
on having our finances to support its multibillion dollar operation.

More and more there are those among us whose consciences no longer allow them
freely to support this military machine. Though they realize that Christians
have usually paid their taxes through the centuries, even to strongly
militaristic governments, they believe that the vast sums required today are
too much, that it is once more time to withstand the military powers that
threaten to destroy all of humankind, that Caesar is demanding not only what
belongs to Caesar, but also what belongs to God.

I was deeply impressed as we went about the circle of General Board members
and staff [at the August meeting] that
almost all had struggled with this issue of conscience and that most had in
some way protested the vast sums being required for military purposes. Though
it is appropriate for us as a people to counsel together whether it is right
in the sight of God to keep paying these war taxes, this is also an issue on
which individuals and families will make their own decisions — and we will not
all make the same decisions.

However, as a conference we face a more complex question. Not only must our
individual members and families decide what to do about war taxes, but the
conference as an employer must collect taxes, including taxes for war, for the
government. We are collecting taxes not only from those who are willing to pay
the whole amount to the government, but also from those who have Christian
convictions against supporting the military in this way. Cornelia Lehn is one
such person. (See below.) A number of ordained ministers working for the
conference are self-employed for tax purposes and thus can make their protest
in whatever way seems appropriate. But for others this is not possible.

So the issue before the General Board in
August was whether the General
Conference as an employer should continue to withhold federal income tax
money, even from those employees who have conscientious objection to this, and
send that money to the government.

The Commission on Home Ministries recommends that the conference should no
longer withhold taxes from those employees who have convictions against such
payments. On the other hand, the Division of Administration has serious
concerns about the consequences for the conference in violating the laws of
the land.

The General Board in its August meeting
had a long and intensive discussion, with representatives of the Commission on
Home Ministries and the Division of Administration and with counsel on
biblical principles from Marlin Miller, president of Goshen Biblical Seminary,
as well as Erland Waltner, president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

A larger and larger majority of General Board members have serious
reservations about serving as a tax collector from those employees who have
Christian convictions against the payment of such taxes. At the same time we
were sensitive that we were being called to make a decision not only for
ourselves but for the whole conference and that we have not yet had adequate
dialog with our congregations about this issue.

What is the will of God for the General Conference in this issue? What is your
counsel for the General Board? We did not act because it was clear that we had
not come to consensus, but the issue will continue to face us and we will
continue to struggle for the right decision.

One possible course of action is for the General Board in its
February meeting to formulate a recommendation
to be sent to the congregations for study and for corporate consideration at
the triennial sessions of the General Conference in
August 1977.

I want to touch on a related question: Is this one of those conference issues
which is of concern only to the United States and not to Canada? Will our
brothers and sisters in Canada feel like washing their hands of this issue? Or
is this one of those cases when one part of the body is in trouble and the
whole body struggles together? May it in fact be possible that the Canadians
can help those of us in the American churches see ourselves a bit more
objectively?

Can we possibly come to the place, in the words of the Acts of the Apostles,
that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us together that we should
decide this issue in a certain way? Surely if we search together in openness
and honesty and in a spirit of prayer, God will not forsake his people.

A letter from Conference employee Cornelia Lehn was also enclosed in Neufeld’s
letter:

I work for the General Conference Mennonite Church at 722 Main
St., Newton, Kansas. Each month
a certain percentage of my salary is deducted for income tax purposes before I
receive it. The business office is legally requested to do so for all
employees except for those who have been ordained to the ministry.

We are told that approximately 50 percent of the income tax deducted goes to
buy armaments. When I first started working here, this did not bother me too
much, even though I believed strongly in nonresistance. After all, did not
Jesus himself pay taxes
(Mt. 17:24-27)?
Why then should I refuse to do so?

The whole question of personal responsibility began to tear at my heart and
mind, however. We held the people condemned at Nuremberg responsible for their
deeds, although they had just “obeyed the government.” We held Captain Calley
responsible for his deeds at My Lai, though he, too, thought he had obeyed the
government. Why should I not be held responsible to obeying the government
when it was asking me to do an evil thing? Though Jesus paid taxes, the spirit
of his teachings is to do good, not evil, to our fellow human beings. I became
convinced that allowing my money to be used for armaments could not be God’s
will and that if it was used in that way I must bear at least part of the
responsibility.

The big question then was how to get out of being involved in this crime. I
could not refuse to pay a portion of my tax, since the whole tax was already
withheld. I asked our conference office not to withhold from my paycheck that
portion of the income tax that goes for war, but they could not grant that
request. I considered the options, such as reducing my paycheck to the point
where I would not need to pay any taxes or reducing it to the point where I
would need to pay only half the taxes I do now.

Finally I decided to give half of my income to relief and other church work
and thus force the Internal Revenue Service to return that portion of my tax
which they had already slated for military purposes.

I realize, of course, that this is not the perfect answer. Of the 50 percent
that IRS
still has of my income tax, half will again be used to meet the military
budget. It is, however, the best answer I know at this time. Finally I could
no longer acquiesce and be a part of something so diabolical as war. I had to
take a stand against it.

I wish that my church, which believes in the way of peace, would as a body no
longer gather money to help the government make war. I wish all the members of
our church would stand up in horror and refuse to allow it to happen. Then the
conference officers would be in a position to say to the government, “We will
not give you our sons and daughters, and we will not give you our money to
kill others. Allow us to serve our country in the way of peace.”

Don
Kaufman wrote in to the magazine on 14 December
1976 to praise Neufeld’s letter and to say that the dialogue about the
issue had been beneficial to the community, but also to criticize the church
for its timidity in the face of the law:

[A]s Christians we seem to be far more accountable to the government than we
are to the church. I have sometimes wondered why it is that we are more
willing to allow the secular authorities to shape us and to “keep us in line”
than we are to receive guidance from our brothers and sisters in Christ. The
major exceptions to this in the General Conference Mennonite Church appear to
be the intentional communities of faith like Fairview Mennonite House and the
New Creation Fellowship, where economic discernment is more obviously a part
of the Christin commitment.

War tax resistance came up in other contexts in The
Mennonite in 1976 as well.

An 18 February letter from Mabel Amstutz
Sutter and Sem Christian Sutter of Chicago to the Internal Revenue Service
was reprinted (this was essentially the same pay-under-protest letter as was
printed in a 1973 edition).
An
13 April letter from Jacob T. Friesen
also announced a pay-under-protest lack-of-resistance strategy.

The 24 February edition noted
that Michio Ohno’s war tax resistance group in Japan, Conscientious Objection
to Military Tax, had launched a new
publication — Plowshare. “The fifth and latest issue
of the four-page paper includes an account of the first Japanese tax resister
whose bank account has been seized by the government, an article on whether
military forces are really effective in national defense, an article on poverty
as a reason for enlisting in the military, and a guide for filing tax returns.”

Also mentioned in that edition was a letter from someone in Colorado to the
MCC
that read in part: “Enclosed find a check for $40 for world hunger. Rather than
paying income taxes, we are sending this check so that we may help to build
peace and support causes that help our troubled world.”

[I]f I were to take a gun and shoot someone, that would be sinful. I would be
punished for my evil actions. If I were to pay someone else $500 to take a gun
and shoot the person, I would still be considered sinful and would still be
liable for punishment. But when I give that $500 to the government and have
them hire the person to do the shooting, it becomes good and I am no longer
evil. It is only when I refuse to kill by proxy through nonpayment of war
taxes that many people (Christians among them) once again see me as evil.

Once again the principalities and powers have moved the consequences of evil
away from us, so that we do not see the direct connection between what I do
and the resulting evil and suffering which is caused. We are lulled into
thinking we are righteous, when in actual fact, we are participating in the
works of the devil.

He traced the history of the three denominations’ struggles over whether
Christians can pay for war when they refuse to participate in it. Some early
church leaders in America advocated not offending the government and thus
paying all taxes. In other groups, especially among Friends, members were
disciplined for supporting war in any way.

“Jesus took direct action in the temple with the money-changers.” Yes, and I’m
sure he is grieved at some of the activities with which we crowd real worship
out of our places of worship — but I don’t read of his organizing a
protest march on Herod’s palace.

We read so much these days about withholding war taxes, but I’m not convinced
this is right — and not because there is anything right about war! Paul lived
in a time when taxes were used to support a system that fed innocent people to
lions in full view of a bloodthirsty crowd of spectators, yet he advised
Christians in his day to submit to the authorities — no word about withholding
taxes.

A
statement from the
MCC
Peace Section was submitted as testimony when the
U.S. House of
Representatives’ ways & means committee considered the “World Peace Tax
Fund Act.” It read in part:

The debate among us as Mennonites is on the question of whether we must, in
order to faithfully follow the way of peace taught by our Lord Jesus Christ,
break the law by refusing to pay part or all of our federal taxes since a high
proportion is used for war.

We do not want to break any laws, but some of us feel compelled to do so on
the tax matter because of a growing conviction that in our modern time we are
not living out our conscientious objection to war if we pay federal taxes used
for military purposes. We urge you to provide a way for us and for many others
of similar convictions to obey both the law and our convictions by enacting
the World Peace Tax Fund Act.

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